SECONDS #44, OCTOBER 1997
-------------------------
[This issue includes in-depth interviews with both Jerry Only and
Glenn Danzig. Both interviews are included here.]
MISFITS (p.26-33)
by Steven Blush
Photos by Frank White
THE MISFITS are one of the most important bands of the American
Punk/Hardcore explosion.
Originally fronted by vocalist Glenn Danzig, the outfit
came to prominence as a gnarly'77 Punk band from Lodi, New Jersey
-- back in an age when Punk was dominated by urbane art school
types who purported to despise the 'burbs. The Misfits arose as
highly-stylized, larger-than-life Sci-Fi Rock Godz within an
American Hardcore subculture driven by a strict grass-roots
anti-star ethos. Essentially, they just never fit in.
As evidenced by all the bad renditions of Misfits standards and
all the bad tribute albums, the outside world didn't fully
appreciate these guys -- certainly not until many years later.
But thanks to the purity of the original vision, the Misfits
continue to be one of the best and most popular Rock
merchandising lines this side of those Hebrew Heavy Metal heroes
collectively known as Kiss.
Don't kid yourself -- fourteen years after their "final"
breakup, the current edition is no true Misfits reunion. There's
no Glenn Danzig, no Bobby Steele, no Robo, no Arthur Googy. Just
the Ciaffa brothers, bassist JERRY ONLY and guitarist DOYLE
"WOLFGANG VON FRANKENSTEIN," as well as some new guys who go by
the monikers MICHALE GRAVES (vocals) and DR. CHUD (drums). It
should also be noted that a major songwriting force this time
around was producer Daniel Rey (Ramones, Iggy, Raging Slab, et
cetera).
The new record, American. Psyche, is awesome, but it's
something like self-plagiarism, picking up where Earth A.D. left
off in 1983. The quartet performs a seventeen track onslaught of
Thrash and mid-tempo etudes with titles like "From Hell They
Came," "Dig Up Her Bones" and "Hate The Living, Love The Dead."
The songs retain the name?
Perhaps Jerry and Doyle were too busy working at their dad's
factory to notice all the subtle changes in Popular Culture. But
don't laugh: the Ciaffas are blue-collar working-class heroes.
They are the type of Jersey jocks who drive Camaros, and as such,
are the ultimate team players. Sure, they might lack the
tyrannical leadership which Danzig provided, but these Misfits
have made a record that truly rocks. Let it be known that
American Psyche is the finest Geffen Records release since
Manowar's epic Louder Than Hell.
The Misfits were, and are, one of the greatest bands of all
time -- just ask Jerry Only. Some of you may scoff at Jerry's
seemingly outrageous proclamation that The Misfits are one of the
Top Five Greatest Bands Of All Time. But I'm steppin' up for the
one and Only by announcing that his band is definitely one of the
sacred Top 100.
What we have here is the ultimate Jerry Only interview.
Anything and everything you ever cared to know about The Misfits
-- from Jerry's perspective, of course -- can be found herein.
For those of you who could care less who played drums on the 1979
Bullet EP or why the brothers Ciaffa teamed up with poodlehead
crooner Jeff Scott Soto for their highly unsuccessful
mid-Eighties Kryst The Conqueror project, now you'll know the
real deal. In fact, more than you'll ever, ever need. Tales from
the crypt, indeed ...
SECONDS: Tell me about your family.
ONLY: My Dad started a company called Pro Edge, an X-acto
knife-type of line. During the Seventies, it was doing really
well and that's when I began to work there. When we first teamed
up with Glenn, we would take our paycheck and go to the music
store and dump it into equipment, and then go out that weekend
and smash everything we worked for the whole week. The Misfits
was a money pit and my dad never really took it seriously, which
lead us into problems later on in the future when the band broke
up. We didn't copyright and publish things and it left us for the
pickings when we broke up with Glenn. He just went forward and
did a whole bunch of deals and made a lot of money. We had to
chase him for a long time.
SECONDS: Tell us about the earliest lineups and your first
memories of Glenn Danzig.
ONLY: Glenn's a lot older than me. I graduated in 1977. In March
of 1977, I teamed up with Glenn through a mutual friend, Manny,
the drummer. By April, I was playing in CBGB. I was playing the
bass for one month before I was out doing gigs. That entire
summer we worked out the Static Age album and at the beginning of
1978 we wound up in the studio. I recorded my first album within
a year of picking up an instrument.
At the time, Glenn was really a humble individual. I know a lot
of people can't grasp that, but he was a really nice guy to work
with and a hard worker. The way we viewed The Misfits was that I
would finance the band by going to the machine shop every day and
working and then we would team up together at night and work on
material. During the day, Glenn would print silkscreen shirts,
answer fan mail and book gigs. He would be the business manager
during the day while I was earning the money to finance the
project. We worked well together for seven years. The only fight
we had was the last day of the band. A lot of people think that
me and him were bitter enemies and always at each other's throat
but that was never the case. When you listen to The Misfits, it
says a lot about progressive music. The roots of music are tied
deeply into the Fifties, into the Buddy Hollys, Gene Vincents and
Dions. The Misfits took that foundation of Fifties Music and made
it nuclear, bringing it to another level of power, another level
of equipment.
The main thing I like about our band is that, like The Ramones,
we go from one song to the next without catching any wind. We
memorize the set because me and Doc [Dr. Chud] wear glasses and
we can't have a written set list. We've got to memorize
forty-five songs in a row. We'll play for an hour and a half and
it won't stop from the beginning to the end. Daniel Rey told me
'You guys are wearing your audiences out. You're playing so
relentlessly that after thirty-five songs people don't have any
more energy left to participate."
SECONDS: Tell us about some of the first Misfits gigs. There was
Eddie's in Teaneck
ONLY: Eddie's Lounge was trying to be what was called "New Wave"
at the time. The bands from New York didn't feel the need to step
over the line and play a place like Eddie's Lounge. They would
rather hang out at Max's or CBGB and take the night off than go
play Eddie's. There were a lot of people from Jersey who really
wanted to have a scene. They were willing to come to Eddie's
Lounge and watch us play. It was New Jersey's first attempt at
catching New Wave and bringing it in. People all over the world
say The Misfits were a New York band but I didn't mind saying,
"We're from Jersey." What are we going to do? Lie to impress you?
SECONDS: Where else could you play in Jersey
ONLY: The other place was The Showplace up in Dover. Later on in
the early Eighties there was Hitsville in Passaic. There was no
other places, really. Eddie's Lounge gave us the confidence to go
out and do things. That was the difference between The Misfits
and other local bands like Suicide and Television. They weren't
the kind of bands that would pick up and go. We went to Toronto,
Detroit and other gigs out of town. The following we developed in
the Midwest made this band a national act.
SECONDS: When Was your first show in Detroit
ONLY: 1978 at Bookie's with Mr. Jim and Frank [Franche Coma]. We
also went to England right after that, in the fall, to open for
The Damned. When their manager refused to pay us a hundred
dollars a night I told him to forget it. He said, "What are you
guys, nuts? Anybody would give their right arm to open for The
Damned." I said, "Fuck you. I fly my whole band here and you
can't give me a hundred dollars a night?" I felt that keeping
face and walking off the tour was more important than exposure.
SECONDS: Wasn't "London Dungeon" about that experience?
ONLY:Well, Glenn got locked up. We had gone to England after Sid
died, in the fall of '79. When Sid was here, I had the fortune of
meeting him, but the unfortunate thing of meeting him the night
he died. I helped out his mom a lot. When we walked off the
Damned tour, we went back to London and found a place to stay.
She said, "Let me pick you up and bring you down to southern
England and show you Canterbury Cathedral." She drove all the way
up to London, picked me up, and took me around. It was really
fun. During this time, Glenn and Bobby Steele went to go see The
Jam at The Rainbow. They're waiting on line to get in, and the
next thing you know, a bunch of Skinheads start a fight with
Glenn. When Glenn turned around, Bobby was running down the
street the other way and Glenn was all by himself with five
skinheads. If you've ever been to The Rainbow, they've got these
glass windows. There was a broken window so Glenn grabbed a piece
of glass and said, "C'mon!" Next thing you know he wound up in
the can. That's where he wrote "London Dungeon."
SECONDS: How was the band's look different by the time
of "Bullet"?
ONLY: The first recollection I have of being in The Misfits is
going to CBGB and seeing The Ramones walk in the door looking
like a team. They all had the same look. When we formed our band,
Glenn looked like he always looked, and I had the short Punk hair
dyed fluorescent blue. We used to wear the pointy shoes that came
from England. You could say we pretty much dressed up like
British punks. Once I came up with the hairdo and Doyle joined
the band, we wound up being like The Ramones. Even more so now
because with the new guys, everybody is the perfect person for
their position. The essence of a good organization is having
guys that can handle their job. As you know, Doyle is my little
brother and we got the devil-lock thing going down. Glenn kind of
touched on it but he didn't take the same hairdo. He wanted a
little bit of the fatter thing with the side part, kind of like
what he's got now. Googy was always sticking out like a sore
thumb because first he looked like Billy Idol. He had bleach
blond hair on the Walk Among Us album. We kept telling him,
"C'mon Googy, you gotta do something." Googy kept trying to talk
us into doing Rap like the Beastie Boys. Now that you had me and
Doyle matching up as a team, you had Glenn kind of stepping into
that aura, and then Googy was replaced by Robo. Robo was an old
man so there wasn't much you could do with his image. He didn't
really match.
The new guys -- Michale looks fantastic and Doc's got his own
devil-lock going. Now we've finally got four guys barking up the
same tree.
SECONDS: Let me ask about some of the people who've been in the
band over the years. First, Manny, Mr.. Jim and Franche Coma, and
Bobby Steele.
ONLY: Manny was very jazzy. In our kind of music, the drummer has
to be very solid. If you listen to "Cough Cool," it's Manny
jamming on his own. He used to drink too much and he wouldn't
show up for practice. He wasn't dedicated and he didn't see the
potential of the project. Then Mr. Jim came along and he was very
good. You'd never see him get aggravated or lay on the floor from
exhaustion after the gig. Frank was a good guitar player because
he didn't know any other songs -- that's why I picked him, so I
could show him what I was doing. The only problem was that Frank
didn't like to leave home. When we went to Toronto he freaked
out. When we got back home he didn't want to go out anymore, so
enter Bobby Steele. Bobby came in between Frank and Doyle. Doyle
was good but he was twelve years old and in grammar school. My
mother said, "Don't even get the idea you're taking this kid on
the road." The only time we used to tour with Doyle was during
the summer when he was off of school. That's when we did the Walk
Among Us album, and tours to San Diego and San Francisco. The
reason we picked Bobby to take-Frank's spot was: 1) Bobby was
from Jersey, 2) Bobby was covering Sex Pistols songs and had an
idea about what we were doing. The only problem was that Bobby's
problems were bigger then the problems of the band. If Bobby had
something to do then the band came second. I was never that way.
It always seemed Bobby would show up and not have a guitar so
he'd have to use Doyle's. Then he'd break all of Doyle's strings
and Doyle would come to me and say, "Why do you let this guy use
my guitar?" I said, "Until you're ready, we've got to do this.
You've got to hang in there." We eventually replaced Bobby with
Doyle and the rest is history. Doyle is a phenomenon as far as
guitar players go. I told them to put a sticker on our album
because it has absolutely no swear words and no guitar leads, one
of the boldest statements in thirty-five years of Rock & Roll. Do
you have to have gang wars to get an album to sell? Do you have
to swear and be really cool? Or can you get down in the trenches
and kick it? With this new record, I told the guys, "There's no
reason we can't write spooky songs without swearing." So we did
it. For The Misfits to come out with a clean album and you to
love it, I think that says something for our songwriting. I had
one concern, and it was about us writing songs that were better
than the old ones; we come from a substantial past. You give this
record six months and I think you're going to feel like I feel.
Our goal is to be the ultimate band of eternity -- sell more
records, kick more ass, have more merchandise. This is total mass
media domination we're going for. I'm not doing it because I want
to be a Rock & Roll star. We work hard developing these things
and we enjoy the creation of what we bring to you.
Glenn had a tremendous voice. It takes tremendous talent to
sing that Static Age stuff as well as he did. Earth A.D. doesn't
have technically superior vocals, but it takes a lot of ability
to do all those screams. You're putting somebody up against
Glenn. The only way I could come up with a long-term investment
was to build somebody. We got Michale at nineteen and started
constructing him into what we needed him to be. I make him take
vocal lessons and we try to get him to lift.
SECONDS: How much did the Static Age record cost
ONLY: We got money from Mercury Records because we owned
the name Blank Records and they put out Pere Ubu on a label
called Blank. They gave us studio time, I think it was
twenty-five hours for fifty bucks an hour. Walk Among Us cost
three thousand bucks. We did it at Mix-O-Lydian Studios in
Boonton, New Jersey. Earth A.D. was done relatively cheap, too. I
would imagine The Misfits catalog was put together for maybe
twenty thousand dollars.
SECONDS: What do you think of Earth A.D.in retrospect
ONLY: If Glenn will give me the two-inch tape, I'11 let you hear
what it really sounds like. Glenn slept through it. We had done a
gig at the Santa Monica Civic Center with Black Flag and after
the show, they took us to this studio. We just got done doing a
gig and we recorded from midnight to nine the following morning.
We recorded it in one big room. My amps faced one way, Doyle's
faced the other way and Robe sat between the two stacks of amps.
We recorded it while Glenn slept. The only time Glenn got up was
when we did "Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?" You can hear
him lay it down so we could start the song and then he went back
to bed. We had twenty-four tracks and we did tracks where we
would just let our guitars feed back. That's why you hear all
that squealing at the beginning of Earth A.D. Glenn doesn't even
know what's on that tape because he wasn't awake when we did it.
I know the way he mixes, he always tries to save money and do it
in these rinky-dinky places. I'm sure he didn't sit down and
listen to each track on the twenty-four track that's what needed
to be done. I gave what he did a "D." It could have been an
"A-plus." The whole concept behind Earth A.D. was Motorhead meets
The Misfits.
SECONDS: The common complaint was that The Misfits became a
Hardcore band on Earth A.D. and lost their original vibe.
ONLY: That's why I broke the band up. It came to the point where
Glenn was trying to form the band into a commodity that lent
itself to what was hip at the time. I didn't see any sense in
"Demonomania." "We Bite" -- I liked the song but not the title.
It's a queer joke or something. I think Glenn was tapped. He was
taking a band that was doing songs like "Halloween" and "Vampira"
and making them do songs of lesser quality. He was a real
hard-ass about it, too. Earth A.D. should have been Walk Among Us
and the cream of the crop of Thrash. That would have been the
right move but he didn't want to hear that. People consider it
the Thrash Metal bible and to a certain extent it is, but it
broke up the band. He wanted to be everybody else.
SECONDS: Earth A.D. had Robo, who was from Black Flag. Wasn't he
an illegal alien.?
ONLY: Robo came to the States in 1974 or '75 on a student visa
from Colombia. Black Flag did a tour in England but Robo couldn't
get back in because his visa had expired. At the time, Googy quit
because he and Glenn would argue over the stupidest things. They
had a fist fight in the van over cheeseburgers one time. Googy
demanded two cheeseburgers and Glenn was being cheap and wouldn't
buy him two.
We picked up Robo and he was another hard worker. He would
repair our van and change the oil pump. Then Robo and Glenn got
into a fight, and that was another reason we broke up. We had a
show on Halloween and then we were supposed to go to Germany to
tour on Earth A.D. Robo was living with Glenn and coming to work
with me since nobody had any money. My mom did a lot for the band
and she put up Black Flag and many other bands at my place. When
Robo came in, my mother was like, "Listen'boys, you've got like
Che Guevara living in my house ..." We told Glenn,'You've got to
put up Robo because mom's not hip on him." Glenn started being
mean to him, so Robo said in October, "I'm outta here." He split
and we had no drummer. The only way we could have done the
Halloween show and the tour in Europe in November was to get a
drummer who already knew the songs. I promised my dad that I
would do enough work during October to cover me for the month I
was gone in November. I didn't have time to teach anybody. Glenn
refused to play with Googy and he picked a kid who really didn't
know the songs. He picked the guy based on the way he looked. It
seemed Glenn's ego was too big for the band. I gave him the
benefit of the doubt. I had seven years of time and so much money
in the band that for me to walk away would have been stupid. I
said, "You find a drummer and if we pull off Halloween and the
kid's good, I'11 go to Germany." We opened with "20 Eyes" and the
kid didn't get one beat in the right spot. So Doyle walked over,
tapped him on the shoulder and said, "You've got to get out of
here." So the drummer from The Necros jumped up because he knew
all our shit. Glenn could have told me, "We'll take the guy from
The Necros to Germany. I'm sorry, you were right." But he didn't
say that and I told everybody that night, "This is our last
night. I'm not going to Germany."
I tried to make things work. After we went through court to get
the name back, we even went so far as to go to Glenn's hotel to
ask him if he wanted to do one more tour for the fans. There's no
getting away from it: Glenn was a founding member of the band and
he wrote fifty of the songs. We've got to put out three more
albums before we bypass Glenn's influence and become more of a
new band than an old band. If he loved the band as much as we
did, he would have stuck with us and listened to us. I still
think we're right. If you listen to our new album and see our new
show, I still think we've got it.
SECONDS: Why Was the breakup so nasty
ONLY: The legal shit was all based upon money. We were getting
shitty mixes, Caroline was putting out albums with nothing but
Glenn's picture, and it seemed we were being totally exploited.
It wasn't fair. Glenn was doing Samhain and Danzig and I didn't
see any reason why we couldn't be The Misfits. He didn't want
anyone to know that he was funding everything he was doing with
our money. Let me tell you, Caroline made millions. I couldn't
believe we had made that much money. Any time anybody would ask
Glenn about The Misfits in an interview, he didn't want to talk
about it. He built his whole career on the idea that he was The
Misfits and we were a bunch of peons. I think we made a good
team. The best stuff Glenn did, he did when we were his band. He
has a hard time facing that. My goal now is to be the most
violently aggressive great band in the world.
SECONDS: In between there was Kryst The Conqueror.
ONLY: I was fed up with music at the time because the whole thing
with Glenn aggravated me. I had to go back to work the day after
the Halloween show. We owed my old man money. I had to look in
the mirror and say, "You might end up working here the rest of
your life." It was a scary realization. If you listen to the
Kryst The Conqueror stuff, it's got a lot of riffs in it. It
sounded very Metal and that's what we were looking to do at the
time. We started listening to other bands and we really liked the
way Jeff Scott Soto sounded on the Yngwie Malmsteen Marching Out
album. We paid him a couple grand and he came and did the job. He
was into Top 40 music and never wanted to play. So Kryst The
Conqueror ended up being a dead end.
SECONDS: You ever check out Manowar
ONLY: I've seen pictures of them; they're very muscular. But I
don't think there's anybody that's going to play as long and hard
as us. We're just a step above everybody. I've been busting my
ass for twenty years to get my ass to where it is now and Doyle's
been right there with me. The music speaks for itself. You've got
Metallica and Guns N Roses covering our songs, a tribute album;
everybody knows who we are -- but everybody has a misconception
of what we are. They look at Metallica's versions of Misfits
songs as being The Misfits. Forget it! They can't play our stuff.
It's a joke. The Guns N' Roses version was even a bigger joke.
Hey, I'm being honest. The tribute albums, there's not a lot of
good versions of those songs on there. Nobody can play our stuff.
It's hard to cover a Led Zeppelin or Beatles song. We're one of
those bands.
What I always say is Elvis is number one, The Beatles are
number two, and the next three spots are up for grabs. I think in
the end, we're going to jockey into one of those positions. After
a few Gold albums and a couple of hits, people are going to say
The Misfits are one of the top five. I think we can break
attendance records and money records. Michael Jackson's Thriller
is going to be a tough one to beat, but I don't see why we can't
give it a run for its money.
SECONDS: Talk about having to defend yourself on stage. I think
back to that San Francisco show
ONLY: That show was a very mismanaged event. When we got there,
the show was run by a guy who had very bad security. He had a
bunch of Black guys as security and a bunch of White teenage kids
he was serving drinks to. I'm : not saying there were racial
problems, but you had eight Black guys and two thousand kids.
When we take the stage, that's exactly what we do; we take the
stage. Doyle was defending himself and it got out of hand. It was
something that shouldn't have happened -- I feel bad about it.
The bottom line is that The Misfits are supposed to be in control
of the situation; we're not supposed to lose our cool. We also
played Watts and there were kids getting beat up and police
helicopters and the Crips were there. It was a bad scene. A lot
of the establishment didn't know how to police the events.
SECONDS: Were The Misfits a good live band back then
ONLY:Musically, no. We were sloppy. The sloppiness was not so
much caused by inadequacy of playing as it was to substantiate
the physical end of the show. We sacrificed technique and
accuracy for sheer aggression. That's the difference between us
now and us in 1983 -- today we can do both. We can be accurate
and still perform, and perform better than we did back in the
days with Glenn. We sing much better now. Back then, I didn't
know how to sing. I went for vocal lessons to learn how to put my
voice in the right spot. I used to go hoarse after every show
because I was destroying my throat. In those days, we would play
two gigs and not play for another two months. Now, we do ten,
eleven shows in a row without a day off. You've got to be good
all the time.
SECONDS: What Were the highlights of the early Misfits ?
ONLY: I think the best thing we did was opening for Black Flag at
the Santa Monica Civic Center. Me and Doyle went out and bought
six guitars each for the show, so we got to wreck six guitars
each in Forty minutes. If anybody finds a video of that, I've got
to see it. It was good; I have no regrets. It's all for the
music.
SECONDS: Wasn't Glenn's rap on you that you weren't good
musicians and he had to write all the songs
ONLY: I've read interviews where he said we were a bunch of drug
addicts and rich snobs. You know, it's funny, because every time
he acted like an asshole and got into a fight, I'd have to pull
somebody off him so he didn't get hurt. When you're Glenn's
friend, he'll say nice things about you. Right now it's easy for
me to take a shot at him but I don't see any class in kicking
somebody when they're down. I just want him to let us be The
Misfits, which he did, and the argument's over. He kept all the
publishing money but it's just money, keep it. Put it in your
closet and get out of the way.
SECONDS: That was the deal, he got the publishing
ONLY: Yeah, and I got the name.
SECONDS: I always felt The Misfits were a working-class Punk
band.
ONLY: We are, guess we're what you'd call blue-collar. We work.
We used to work twelve hours a day in a machine shop, lift
weights for another hour, then have a practice, and go home at
ten at night. This was when we didn't even have a band, during
the Eighties! We worked for everything we got. I don't want this
band to get swayed by money. I want us to be the biggest and the
best but I don't like to act like we're the biggest and the best.
I want to get up in the morning and earn it.
SECONDS: What are you proudest of in terms of the American Psyche
album?
ONLY: I didn't write the whole album, and neither did Doyle, we
all did. That was the element Glenn threw away for the money. As
a result, we're going to be on top of the heap and he's going to
be on the bottom. There is not one man that is better than a
whole team. If Glenn would have let Eerie and John Christ help
write, he would have much better music. I didn't hear anything
that came out of him after he left our band that impressed me. [
must say that I was pretty disappointed with everything he did.
SECONDS: How would you like The Misfits to be remembered?
ONLY:Every day.(laughs) There's an element of animal in every
living creature; everybody's got their dark side and The Misfits
are like the Werewolves of Rock. We take human music and
transform it into a beast. The Misfits is a well-thought-out
attack on everything. For me, it's a reason to be alive. I just
hope people can appreciate the reality of it.
____________________________________________________________________
GLENN DANZIG (p. 34-44)
by Steven Blush
GLENN DANZIG is at the lowest point of his career. Last year's
Blackacideuil album on Disney's Hollywood imprint was a total
flop. The ensuing tour did even worse. After twenty years of
important recordings, Glenn was back to Square One.
He should be huge. After all, wasn't he the lead singer of The
Misfits? Hadn't he become a latter-day Heavy Metal icon? And
weren't all those Metal fans supposed to be so loyal? Opening
acts on Danzig tours who went on to fame and fortune include
Soundgarden, White Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Type O Negative and
Korn. Ouch.
Some people scoff at Glenn because of his dour demeanor and
dark offerings. His quasi-Satanic and Racialist philosophies have
no doubt caused some problems for him and others. For example,
according to his 1994 SECONDS interview with Michael Moynihan,
Glenn spoke frankly about Race politics, saying that MTV wouldn't
play his video of "Until You Call On The Dark" because they
thought it was Satanic. Later that interview was reprinted,
without our permission, in Tom Metzger's tabloid WAR, and we were
soon thereafter contacted by the Anti-Defamation League. At least
Danzig's big enough to express his opinions without fear of
recrimination. Glenn ain't no Nazi Punk, he's just got pride and
self-esteem. The muscle-bound Danzig is his own man.
Sociologically speaking, there isn't a whole lot of difference
between The Misfits, Glenn's subsequent band SAMHAIN, or the
later eponymous outfit Danzig; they were all maniacal bands
that killed from the heart. The Misfits' mercurial lineups Glenn
Danzig, Jerry Only, Bobby Steele, Doyle, Robo, Arthur Googy, Joey
Image, Franche Coma, Mr. Jim, Manny, Brian Damage for a single
song, even Necros and Laughing Hyenas alum Todd Swalla for half
of a show played visceral, melodic Punk and dressed like a
low-budget fusion of mad scientists, jock punks and cartoon
superheroes. Perhaps their decline was precipitated by a
particularly nasty April 1982 San Francisco performance in which
Doyle used his axe to crack some kid's skull open.
When he disbanded The Misfits in 1983, Glenn had already
graduated from Punk Rock Comic Book Geek to Heavy Metal Beelzebub
incarnate. He went off to form one of the greatest bands that
never achieved stardom, Samhain, which consisted of such
characters as Eerie Von, London May, Lyle Presslar, Brian Baker,
Steve Zing, C.A. Richie, Pete "Damien" Marshall, and Al Pike.
Their music makes a lot more sense a dozen years after the fact;
it's evocative of Alien Sex Fiend or Scraping Foetus Off The
Wheel but with guitars blaring. The 1984 debut album Initium, on
Glenn's Plan 9 label, was fucking brilliant. Samhain's
heavy-handed Goth can still be heard today in bands like Type O
Negative, Subarachnoid Space and Moonspell.
Danzig, the band -- to date it has included Eerie, Chuck
Biscuits, John Christ, Joey Castillo, Mark Chaussee, Tommy Victor
and Josh Lazie -- has always been a full-on Rock experience.
Their five albums and one live EP simply define "primal instinct"
-- no makeup, no
bullshit, just hair and muscle and male perspiration. Face it,
you can't deny this guy.
The band's self-titled 1988 Def American debut album was a
stripped-down affair containing the hits "Twist Of Cain,"
"Mother," "Am I Demon," and "She Rides." Danzig II -- Lucifuge
(1990) was a dank, Delta Blues-driven opus with killer tracks
like "Her Black Wings" and "I'm The One." Danzig III -- How The
Gods Kill (1992) was perhaps best known for the cover, H.R.
Giger's 1976 masterpiece painting "Meister And Margeritha." A
feud over the use of that painting eventually erupted; during a
noted New York performance, an ambitious process server allegedly
crowdsurfed his way onto the stage to subpoena Glenn. Danzig 111
was uneven but had great songs like "Godless" and "Dirty Black
Summer." Also,'92 saw the release of Glenn's symphonic outing,
Black Aria.
The commercial pinnacle of Glenn's varied recording career was
the Gold-certified 1993 live EP, Thrall Demonsweatlive, with
"It's Coming Down" and the megaMTV hit "Mother." The following
year came 4p, a runicinspired morass which obviously went way
over my head.
Hooking up with Rick Rubin and the (Def) Am~rican Recordings
label was a mixed blessing. On one hand, Glenn put out his most
successful records with Rick. On the other hand, the music of
Danzig became ghettoized due to its harsh AC/DC-isms. Then again,
Glenn hasn't exactly excelled as self-producer and manager. The
inevitable split between the two mega-egos was less than
amicable, to put it politely.
Rubin tried to put the emphasis on Glenn's voice -- he saw the
band Danzig as a vehicle for Glenn's powerful deliveries -- while
Glenn curiously saw his Elvis-esque golden throat as just another
instrument in the mix. On Blackacideuil, his trademark croon was
obscured to the point of being unrecognizable (and on a remix of
"Sacrifice," Industrial guru Jim Thirlwell only heightened the
confusion).
Throughout his career, Glenn has promoted striking visual
strategies; in other words, he knows a good skull when he sees
one. He currently runs his own comic publishing company, Verotik,
home of nasty popular titles like Devil Man, Jaguar God and
Satanika. Judging by all the action at their headquarters,
there's some nice coin to be made off racy renderings of heroic
primates and sexy supervixens.
After all these years, I just don't know what to make of Glenn.
He's alienated most of his friends from the early Hardcore scene,
he's disavowed his Metal daze and, to put it bluntly, most
Industrial kids could care less about Glenn Danzig. I spent two
days with him conducting an in-depth interview and making
extensive plans for a symbiotic relationship between SECONDS and
Verotik -- only not to hear back from him since. According to
Glenn's publicist, he was upset that I never came through with
the "double cover story" I allegedly offered. Neither I nor
anyone I know in the publishing business have ever heard of such
a thing. Glenn, I apologize ...
SECONDS: What were you listening to before Punk
DANZIG: Well, we always had Punk in America. Stuff was called
"Punk" here way before it was called "Punk" in England. As a
matter of fact, Malcolm McLaren got the great idea for his Punk
band when he came over here and saw Television, Richard Hell and
The Ramones. Even before that, in the Sixties, you could go in a
record shop and there was a Punk section. It really meant Garage
Bands but it said "Punk." SECONDS: So were you buying The New
York Dolls and The Stooges? DANZIG: I remembering liking The
Velvet Underground and went from there. Of course, I loved The
New York Dolls -- always hated Kiss. I still hate Kiss, okay? I'm
not on the Kiss bandwagon -- never have been, never will be. They
were just this really bad version of The New York Dolls from
Queens. The Dolls were about attitude and I've always been into
attitude in music. When British Punk hit American shores it was
loud and crazy and that's the kind of music I like. So I had
versions of The Misfits going back around '76,'77.
SECONDS: Were you writing at this time"
DANZIG: Yeah, way before. I mean, I wrote "Bullet" in 1974 as a
three-verse poem.
SECONDS: Was your family supportive of your music"
DANZIG: No.
SECONDS: What was the vibe at these first shows
DANZIG: We would shock people -- open mouths dripping. I remember
one show at CBGB. It was Jerry's first show and he showed up in
glam clothes, like shoes with platforms and open toes, and I was
like, "I'm not going onstage with you." It was hard getting
people to understand what it was about.
SECONDS: When did the full-on Horror vibe arise in The Misfits Z
DANZIG: The B-movie thing just started happening because I did
this deal to get us into the studio where I sold off the rights
to the name "Blank Records" to Cliff Bernstein. for twenty hours
at Mercury's recording studios. Finally, The Misfits could record
a real record. People heard "Bullet" and that other stuff but we
still recorded "Teenagers From Mars" and "Return Of The Fly." I
was into the Mad Max movie and was trying to get those guys to
see the movie -- I wasn't happy. I didn't like the way my songs
were coming out and what was going on in the band. I mean, Doyle
couldn't play guitar, Jerry didn't practice his bass at all. I
was already disillusioned.
SECONDS: Was Doyle in the band because he was Jerry's brother"
DANZIG: As far as Doyle being in The Misfits, Jerry didn't want
Bobby in the band anymore. Originally, I didn't want Bobby in the
band at all, but he was in the band. They wanted Bobby out and
Doyle in. I said, "Look, I don't really care, but don't lead
Bobby on anymore." I was teaching Doyle stuff on guitar and it
wasn't working -- his hands were just too big. Eventually, they
didn't tell Bobby, so I told Bobby. They wanted him to come down
to the show and not know he was out of the band or something,
which was not cool.
SECONDS: I always felt like The Misfits would have occurred
whether or not there was Punk and Hardcore.
DANZIG: I had my own agenda with songs, style and lyrics. It was
coming from more of a literary standpoint. The whole Heavy Metal
attitude I didn't like. I wanted out of The Misfits and decided
to do a new band. Besides, those guys never wanted to play and
were very happy working for their dad and making lots of money. I
just didn't like a lot the bands they liked. They liked Van Halen
and Judas Priest and I hated that shit -- couldn't stand it. I
liked loud music but I liked Motorhead more. There's a big
difference between Judas Priest and Motorhead.
SECONDS: You were outsiders to the Hardcore scene. Why were those
people so rabid about you?
DANZIG: I think the songs spoke for themselves. Why does somebody
like Johnny Cash? Because he's real. My problem was that while
image is important, I thought that image was becoming too
important. I wasn't into it and I'm still not. Everything's an
image, even farmer shit. If you're not from anywhere there's a
farm and you're wearing lumberjack shit, that's an image. What
are you, cutting down trees for a living? My image is dark and
somber. It fits my personality. The problem I always had with the
people in The Misfits was that it was a put-on. You wouldn't see
those guys walking around like that.
SECONDS: The Misfits had a tangential relationship with BLack
Flag.
DANZIG: Well, I know Spot always wanted to work with us and Robo
loved the band; he wanted to be in The Misfits. Henry was just a
big fan. Black Flag were, and still are, one of my favorite
bands. There were a bunch of bands that came out of Punk that
were different and did music that still lives on. That was us,
Black Flag, Minor Threat and the Bad Brains. I remember when the
Bad Brains first came up to New York and they were all in Ska
jackets and they were like fast Jazz-Punk. We were doing stuff
that was way faster than anyone ever heard and they were like,
"Is this Punk? What is this angry stuff that's really fast?" Out
on the West Coast was Black Flag and a band people don't realize
was important, Rhino 39. It was all happening at the same time
but it wasn't getting covered. Of course, magazines in New York
hated what we were doing, hated what Black Flag was doing,
because it wasn't New Wave. It's still like that today where KROQ
hates anything aggressive.
SECONDS: Is there a story of you and Henry Rollins chasing Motley
Crue down a street
DANZIG: Not down the street, but we ran them out of The Whiskey
when The Misfits first played there. It happened and it was
pretty funny. You know, Motley Crue got a lot from The Misfits --
so did Rick James. Up until then, Motley Crue was a Dolls
imitation and then all of a sudden they were into "the mark of
the beast." So many bands have stolen from shit I've done -- I
don't care anymore. The only one I really hate is Stone Temple
Pilots. They out and out stole "Snakes Of Christ" and renamed it
"Sex Type Thing." I did Lonn Friend's radio show and he goes,'You
know this song?" and puts on what I think is "Snakes Of Christ"
and all of a sudden I hear this doofus going, "I am, I am, I am,"
and I'm going "Who's this?" "Oh, this is Stone Temple Pilots.
This song sounds familiar, doesn't it?" We played them back to
back and they were exact.
SECONDS: What was the real deal with the notorious Misfits
incident in San Francisco in 1982?
DANZIG: All night people were getting hit with bottles and beer
cans. These kids had singled out Doyle and were hitting him with
full beer cans. Finally, Googy jumped in the audience in the
middle of a song and started a fight with one of the guys
throwing beer cans at him. It was a big fight, Googy started
getting his ass kicked, and Doyle saw one guy throwing beer and
hit him in the head with his guitar. It just went crazy after
that, a big riot basically. I remember when MaximumRockNRol1 did
their story, it was one-sided that everybody wanted The Misfits
gone but that's bullshit because a lot of people had come there
to see The Misfits play. It was typical yellow journalism from
MaximumRockNRoll.
SECONDS: That magazine was sometimes seen as Communistic.
DANZIG: Isn't it still like that?
SECONDS: What were highlights and lowlights for The Misfits
Obviously, there were some great highlights. DANZIG: Not towards
the end. Once '80 hit, that's when it got pretty bad. The band
you're seeing right now as The Misfits is not The Misfits. It's
one guy trying to relive something and make some money because
Punk is fashionable again. It's not The Misfits and everyone
who's seen them has called me and said, "What the fuck is this?"
The high point was that I got to do all my songs. The low point
was putting up with all the bullshit. Once I got out of that
situation, my life became so much better and easier. Those guys
could go through money like you wouldn't believe. You didn't make
that much money back then to begin with. If we made $500, we were
lucky.
SECONDS: Was Samhain a decision to do something different
DANZIG: It was supposed to be what I wanted to do all along.
Originally, we were going to call it Danzig. It was a blending of
what people call Goth with some slower grooves and tribal drums.
More progressive, for sure. Punk was getting boring.
SECONDS: Samhain was definitely the precursor to Gothic Metal.
I'm trying to think what was going on then
DANZIG: Bauhaus and Alien Sex Fiend. We were doing stuff that was
mid-tempo and dirge-y, and at that time I was playing so many
instruments on records, it was like The Misfits. Again, it was
hard finding people. I listened to Sex Gang Children, March
Violets, Foetus -- I like music that has the original Punk ethic,
which is: as soon as it gets boring, change it. Music has always
been revolutionary for me.
SECONDS: Samhain wasn't horror; it went farther
DANZIG: It was a more real approach. That's what Earth A.D. was
supposed to be; the other guys made it cartoon-y.
SECONDS: With Samhain, I got the idea people wanted you to do one
thing and you were doing something else.
DANZIG: We played to way more people than The Misfits. People
think The Misfits was a big band and it wasn't. We had big shows
in New York or L.A. but anywhere else except Detroit -- you're
looking at fifty to five hundred.
SECONDS: I saw Samhain at The Ritz and it was on a bigger level
DANZIG: In the beginning of Samhain, we'd play places of all
sizes. One night we'd be playing a thousand-seater and the next
night a club. The money was much better in Samhain; the band was
able to play five nights a week, as opposed to The Misfits, where
the guys wanted to fly in, do three nights, and fly out to be
back at work. That became two nights, and then one night. They
wanted me and Robe to sleep in the van while they would just fly
in. They were primadonnas. As a matter of fact, when I first saw
Spinal Tap, I was like, "This is my old band." Anyway, Samhain
was better. The first Samhain L.A. show we played at the Stardust
Ballroom across the street from a big Metal bill at The
Palladium. We did over fifteen hundred paid an Motorhead had
three hundred people at their show. The Ramones were playing too
in Long Beach and we did pretty good. Actually, at one show,
Green River opened up. We had a direction and were moving. That's
the band Rick Rubin saw at the New Music Seminar. We were
representing the United States and Celtic Frost wa there, DOA was
there, MDC ... Rubin had signed Slayer at the New Music Seminar
the year before. He came down next year and came backstage and I
didn't know who h was. I knew the Beastie Boys, but I didn't know
he wa working with them. Here's this guy with a long ZZ Top beard
going crazy backstage and I'm like, "Who the fuck is this guy?"
He's telling me people he knows and I said, "I know Glen
Friedman," and he said, "Call him, he'll tell you who I am."At
that time, Samhain was getting to be too much for me to handle. I
was looking for a label and we had interest from Elektra, Epic,
and of course Rubin's label, which was Def Jam at the time. I
decided Rubin's label would be the best to go with. That became a
whole other nightmare, but it did get the band out there. The
guitarist had been kicked out and I began a guitar search; we
ended up using John Christ. Rick and I sat and talked. I said,
"This isn't working." He said, "To be honest, I don't want any of
these old guys. Eerie can't play, the drummer can't play. All I
want to do is sign you. I never liked The Misfits; this band I
like." I said, "Eerie comes, or it's not going to happen." I was
going to call Samhain "Danzig" before and now it was clear. I was
like, "I'm tired of changing names of bands. We should just call
it Danzig. I'11 never have to change the name again.
SECONDS: Do Samhain's records accurately represent the band
DANZIG: To an extent. I think live, it was much different. It was
always hard getting a good guitar sound on the budget we had to
work with. In the Samhain box set, there will be two live CDs.
SECONDS: Danzig was different. Was that a matter o production or
new ideas
DANZIG: It was a combination of a bunch of things. What Rick
wanted to do was strip my songs down. A lot of people don't
understand what a producer is. Actually, a producer works with
you as a fifth member and rearranges songs and gives ideas. I
liked his ideas of stripping it all down and making it raw.
Eventually, what happened is I started missing all those layers.
Some of the songs on the first Danzig record just came off like
Rock songs. Maybe they were more aggressive than other stuff
going on -- and I guess they were, because no band would take us
out for anything. As a matter of fact, to this day Danzig has
only done a support slot on two tours: Metallica -- and they
waited until "Mother" was a massive hit in '93 -- and Ozzy.
Everybody was scared of our audience and what we did. AC/DC's
management was scared to death. We were up for every tour and
what happened is Danzig did their own tours. When we did our
first full-scale tour for Lucifuge, Soundgarden and COC were the
openers. The next tour we took White Zombie and Kyuss. The next
tour after that was Proper Grounds and then Genitorturers. Later
on, Type O Negative, Godflesh -- Streetcleaner was one of my
favorite records -- and Marilyn Manson and Kern last year. I like
to take out bands other bands wouldn't. Aside from Trent Reznor,
we were the only people to take out Manson.
SECONDS: What do you think of those first few Danzig records?
DANZIG: I like them. I would have liked to see
more mood on the first record. The second record Rick didn't have
much to do with and you can hear the mood coming back in. How The
Gods Kill is where it really starts changing and I'm producing
because producers are scared to work with us. I added more
keyboards and Eerie and Chuck both grew very unhappy with John as
a guitar player. They hated his style and didn't want him in the
band. We actually tried out Dez Cadena from Black Flag and I
called my friend Pepper from COC to see if he would want to do
it.
SECONDS: What was the problem with John Christ
DANZIG: The feel wasn't there. It was becoming too stiff and
Metal. They wanted a more loose, rhythmic guitarist. How Eerie
put it was he wanted a more "soulful" guitarist. And a crazier
one. I have no problem hitting my guitar and bending it and John
would never do that. As a matter of fact, in "It's Coming Down,"
I was banging the fuck out of my guitar and John just put his
guitar down and then he walked out.
SECONDS: He came from a different background.
DANZIG: Yes, he did. So, what happened was Chuck tried to kill
himself in a hotel and whatever his problems were -- drugs,
liquor, everything --Chuck had grown unhappy with Eerie. He
didn't think he could play bass and by this time, Eerie hated
Chuck. In retrospect, I should have changed the lineup sooner.
Originally when Rick and I set the band up, I could have other
musicians come in all the time --kind of like what Ozzy does.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and Ozzy's new lineup
is awesome with Mike Bordin on drums. He's probably one of the
best drummers in the business and he doesn't get his due. I
remember Faith No More played with Samhain at the Metroplex in
Atlanta and those guys had no money. I let them sell Samhain
t-shirts and gave them a hundred bucks each.
Eventually, John found out about us trying other people out. So
he had done the Danzig 4 record with me and asked if he could
finish out the tour and I had no problem with that. There was
definitely going to be more experimentation going on in Danzig 5.
I wanted to get back to a lot of stuff I had done in Samhain
which Rubin would discourage. He hated anything digital. You
couldn't even put a digital harmonizer on vocals; Rubin would
have a heart attack. That's one of the reasons Danzig III sounds
so different is that I got to play with a lot of stuff. When we
did Danzig 4, he used to come down at the end of the night for
fifteen minutes -- that was his "production" -- and he'd go,
"Wait a minute. Is that digital?" We'd show him a little fuzzbox
but not show him all the other shit it was patched with. At that
time, it was basically just me and John working in the studio and
sometimes he wouldn't even come down at all and it was just me
and the engineer.
SECONDS: And that was the end of Danzig math one.
DANZIG: On the Danzig 4 tour, Joey was the drummer. He's an
in-demand drummer, he's turned down bands like Suicidal and
Slayer, and was in Sugartooth and Wasted Youth. Immediately we
clicked because of the Punk thing, he hated all the bands I
hated, and liked Rap. That was cool because Eerie and John hated
Rap, couldn't stand it. It got to the point where I couldn't even
play Rap around Eerie. He was going in the opposite direction of
Allman Brothers and Stevie Ray Vaughn -- they're the reason I
started Punk bands. It got weird being around Eerie with him
being into all this mellow, Hippie Potsmoking music and Country
-- new Country Music, not even old Country.
SECONDS: As for artwork, you've always understood the whole
package.
DANZIG: I went to art school, and after high school I went to
photography school at the New York Institute Of Photography. Some
of my favorite photographers are Man Ray and Helmut Newton. In
the beginning of New York Punk, art was very much a part of it
and art is still important to me. We used Anton Corbijn for
videos and photo shoots and he's awesome; we even used Peter
Christopherson people don't realize he was in Throbbing Gristle.
Getting off the track, the thing I hate is this "Industrial" tag.
Every time people hear treated vocals, they're like, "It's
Industrial," but The Beatles treated vocals! Does that mean "Come
Together" is Industrial? I don't know what people mean by
"Industrial. To me, it's Throbbing Gristle and Neubauten.
SECONDS: You talk about the arty part of Punk but Hardcore was
less arty.
DANZIG: I don't think Hardcore was less arty. It had a definite
look and style and there's also an art to brutality. That's why
certain boxers are better than others -- there's an art to it.
People would ask me why I was always working out and I said I
wanted to have the perfect synthesis between mind and body, to
take my mind and body to the ultimate plateau. It may sound
Nietzschean, but I remember people in the beginning of Punk
talking about how Nietzsche had made them do what they wanted to
do. Art was important because it placed a value on the music that
wasn't on bands like Van Halen and Judas Priest. That's why you
don't see pictures of Glenn Danzig hanging out with Sammy Hagar
-- an abomination on this planet. You don't see pictures of Henry
like that either. Don't confuse me with them.
It's like the idiots are running the show again. With all this
happy Pop-Punk, record companies finally found a way to make
millions off Punk. It's Green Day and The Offspring. There's
nothing angry about it. It's not doing anything except putting
money in their pockets. It may have the sound, but not the
attitude.
SECONDS: Tell us about Verotik.
DANZIG: I never thought I'd be doing a company like this but no
one was doing it in America. I had the opportunity to do it and
make a difference. Up until now, there's only been X-Men,
Superman, Spiderman -- silly superheroes running around in
spandex trying to save the world and the only female character
you had is Wonder Woman. What we've done is get together some
really good writers, painters and colorists and put together a
mature, adult package. It's an uphill battle; there's censorship
everywhere and companies are scared of you and trying to get you
closed down because now you're making people re-think what their
product is. All of a sudden, people are going, "Their stuff is
for kids." We're not trying to get a expand people's minds. The
Verotika book is by people who write novels; they don't do comic
books. We also have female writers. Every other country has an
adult comic market and I'm happy I did it.
SECONDS: What went down between you and H.R. Giger
DANZIG: That was a problem with his management. After I
negotiated the record deal, I thought we got t-shirt rights
because it was pretty expensive. Somehow, the i management
didn't give us t-shirt rights and we couldn't do a t-shirt of the
How The Gods Kill album cover and we started getting bootlegged
like crazy, especially in Germany. They thought we were doing the
shirts and we told them we weren't and some lawsuit erupted. I
don't know where it stands right now.
SECONDS: Did they subpoena you onstage"
DANZIG: No, that never happened. I met Giger and he was a real
nice guy. He invited us to his museum in Zurich and we took
photos with him. Then I heard him say some really fucked-up
shit about me, which is really two-faced.
SECONDS: Why did you do an Electronic record, Blackacidevil?
DANZIG: It's not an Electronic record. There's guitars on it -- a
lot of the noises you hear are me screwing up my guitar and
sending it through fuzz boxes. There are no machines playing
themselves on this record. Live, whatever can't be reproduced by
an instrument has to be played by D-88s or whatever, but the
vocals, guitar, bass and drums are live.
SECONDS: What inspired this record
DANZIG: I really hate the state of music right now. The year 2000
is approaching and aside from a handful of bands, no one is
really doing anything to further music. When I heard the Lords Of
Acid record, it was exciting and the live show was like a
Hardcore show, five slampits and people going crazy. A ritual, an
experience beyond sitting there and clapping your hands. It was a
synthesis of tribal drums and Hardcore mixed with Techno grooves.
I'm not a big Techno fan but this was something different that
reminded me of the early days of Punk. It was clear I was going
to be changing shit up with my new record, but still keeping it
hard. Bands like Pearl Jam tried to go all folky and I was going
to go deep inside the belly and just rip. This album is the album
I have no regrets on.
SECONDS: Labels put so much pressure on the artist and then don't
come through.
DANZIG: I'd rather be in charge of the artwork than have them do
it. My original deal with Rick was that I would have less to do,
because I was running Plan 9 and everything. He said, "All you
have to do is worry about writing songs and going on the road."
Bullshit! I was doing everything down to producing the records
because he was never there. He was off playing Hollywood
producer, which he's still doing -- a millionaire living on the
hill. Being on that label became a big joke. Verotik has been
going for almost three years now and unless I'm on the road, I'm
here all the time. I mean, Rubin was coming in for an hour on
Wednesday for a lunch meeting and that was it. How could it be
his vision anymore?
SECONDS: Isn't it true that Curtis from Taang got his start
bootlegging Misfits singles
DANZIG: Yes, and if I ever get ahold
of him his face is going to be planted in a wall. I stopped him
with Caroline and had him destroy all the bootlegs and he just
started doing it again. He's going to be in a lot of trouble
soon. He was a friend and for a friend to do that is not cool.
There are givers and takers and somewhere along the line, Curtis
decided he was going to be a taker. I also heard Tesco Vee
bootlegs records. This is another person who got jealous his band
didn't do anything. His band was a joke band and one day he told
everyone "We're going to be bigger than Judas Priest," and
believed it.
SECONDS: It's rumored Revelation got started~through bootlegging,
too.
DANZIG: I know they caught the guys from Youth Of Today
bootlegging the SSD stuff. I heard from Jamie that Al wanted to
demolish them. I see Springa all the time. He's loony as ever.
SECONDS: Are you still involved with Jeet Kune DoZ DANZIG: Yes.
Jeet Kune Do means "way of the intercepting fist." I train with
one of Bruce Lee's original five disciples. They were all
students of Ed Parker, the guy who used to train Elvis. He said,
"I want you all to meet this guy doing an exhibition." They went
to meet Bruce and the story is they didn't go back to Ed, they
stayed with Bruce.
SECONDS: The discipline is about restraint.
DANZIG: It is and it isn't. It's knowing when there's a real
threat and knowing when there's not a threat. A fight is only a
fight when you're throwing down. People yelling at each other is
just words. Until someone puts a hand on me, there's nothing.
SECONDS: Quentin Tarantino glorifies violence but doesn't seem to
have experienced true violence.
DANZIG: Is he glorifying violence or just commenting on the world
today? We've had wars forever, intrigue forever, people being
framed for stuff they didn't do since the dawn of time. We've had
genocide since the Christians were murdered by the Romans. We've
had slavery forever. It kills me when everyone acts like Black
people were the only slaves. Tell that to the Spanish people down
in Mexico who were made slaves. Tell that to the families in
Germany and England who were all slaves at one time. Tell that to
the people in England who had to give up their wives the first
night of their wedding because they weren't people, just part of
the land, and the king could have any wife he wanted on the first
night of her marriage.
SECONDS: There's Black-on-Black slavery in. Africa, today.
DANZIG: Reverend Farrakhan now finally admits that Black brothers
in Africa sold Black brothers to Dutch traders. We all knew that
but now he's admitting it. You can't rewrite history; everybody's
family at one time was a slave. If there was a war and you were
captured, you were a slave. The Romans had Greek slaves and the
Greeks weren't Black. Historically, slavery is not just Black
people in the United States. There's slavery going on right now
with Asians and I don't see everyone freaking out. There's
slavery where young blonde girls go over to Japan and are never
heard of again. If we really want to comment on slavery, let's
not just go back to the 1800s. Someone might say I'm being
insensitive but I'm being realistic about it. It's an insensitive
subject.
SECONDS: You've raised the question of What's wrong with being
proud to be White
DANZIG: Why would I not be proud of being White? "Look what all
the White people have done --" Well, look what all the Black
people have done. Look what all the Mexican people have done.
Every race has a ahadaw east over it at some point in history.
What race am I? I'm a mutt, I'm a mix of a bunch of different :
stuff and so is everybody else. There is no "original" race
anymore. As far as me being an Aryan or a racist, anyone who
knows me knows that's bullshit. But if there's a race war, what I
am going to do? Twenty Black guys with guns aren't going to care
that I'm not with anybody.
SECONDS: Is that in, our future?
DANZIG: Sure. Civil wars like that have always happened and are
always going to happen. As much as you'd like to change it, the
world will always take you back to what it is. You're just a
speck on this planet and as the world evolves, it repeats itself.
SECONDS: There are cleansing processes.
DANZIG: Nature has its own cleansing processes -- AIDS may be one
of them. Ebola, all these different things, nature controls what
happens on this planet. The world always has its way of
clarifying things.
SECONDS: If you stand for anything, you're considered a racist
DANZIG: They can suck my dick and die. There's so many double
standards. If you're proud and White, all of a sudden you're
racist That's not the case and anyone with half a brain knows
that. Unfortunately, we live in a world where a lot of people
don't have half a brain. People try to acquiesce to certain
groups and then that becomes a reverse inequality.
SECONDS: The ultimate racism is a White person saying to a Black
person, "Hey man, you've got so much soul," and patting them on
the back.
DANZIG: What is Black? To be honest, Black people aren't black.
We're all different shades of brown. Calling yourself Black and
calling somebody White has already set up a division. So don't
moan about the division later, okay? As far as Black people
talking White and White people talking Black, that's bullshit.
English is English and different communities have different
slang. In German and Spanish, there's different dialects. You're
a product of where you grew up.
SECONDS: I feel we've reached a point in society where
DANZIG: -- people think too much.
SECONDS: The racists aren't the problem anymore; it's the
virulent anti-racists who cause trouble.
DANZIG: I'm going to say something very controversial: if you are
African-American and you don't want to live by White people, that
should be your choice. Where I grew up, there were areas White
people weren't allowed to go in. If you did, you'd get your ass
kicked or killed. The flipside of that is why shouldn't there be
areas a Black person can't go? If a White person doesn't want to
live with Black people, that's their decision. This is America;
do what you want to do. The problem is that most people in this
country aren't secure with themselves as people. Reverend
Farrakhan would like to see Blacks and Whites separated. Fine,
because the people that don't want to be separated will say,'You
go do what you want to do and I'11 stay here. It might be better
off, because we have these people here, those people there, and
then all the people that want to be together.
SECONDS: We teach everyone to love each other and maybe we're
being disingenuous; maybe it's okay to hate. Why can't you
dislike someone DANZIG: Maybe a Black guy breaks into my house, I
catch him, he goes to jail. I'm not going to distrust all Black
people because of that. If a White person broke in my house,
would I hate all White people? No. But there are people who do.
I'm just being logical about the whole situation and sometimes
that's insensitive to people. I'm not saying I have all the
answers, but I do have answers. I know in Idaho the Aryan Nation
tried to form their own county. The problem was they tried to
secede from the United States. But I don't see a problem setting
up a town of people who all believe the same stuff. They're
complaining that they have all these guns but everybody has guns.
In L.A., the gangs have more guns than the police. Why isn't
there a big National Guard raid on every gang house? Well, then
who would sell the drugs for the government?
SECONDS: If you're not firm with people, they walk all over you
anal we see this in society.
DANZIG: I don't let people walk all over me and immediately I'm
branded an asshole and hard to deal with. Why am I hard to deal
with? Because I don't want to do what you want me to do. I want
to do what I want to do. Call me an asshole, fine. I'm still not
doing anything you want me to do. The fact that I'm able to do
what I do makes me successful. I have no regrets and I'm very
happy. I would not change a thing about my life. Could I have
been more successful? Sure, but I don't play the game. If you
play the game, you lose because it's their game. I play my own
game. I told you before I always hated Kiss and one thing that
irritates me was when I saw this Gene Simmons article and all of
sudden he was cocky again because Kiss are real popular. He was
asked "How can you deny the success of the Velvet Underground?"
"They were an abysmal failure. Kiss is the only successful band
that ever came out of New York." "How can you say that? The
Velvet Underground have gone on to influence tons of bands." "Oh,
they sucked, they never had any success, and they're poor. They
never sold out arenas, they never had any Gold records." That's
success to him. They asked, "What is success to you?" "Selling
out arenas and multi-Platinum records. I live the life of
luxury." It's not, "Did I write a good song?" Did Kiss ever write
a good song? Not in their whole fucking career. Did they write a
lot of Pop trash? Sure. Did it sell a lot of records? Yeah. So
did Captain And Tennille. Selling records has nothing to do with
music. He says no other band came out of New York that was
popular? The Shangri-Las came out of New York and sold millions
of records. Dion came out of New York and sold millions of
records, Danzig came out of New York and we have Platinum and
Gold records. In fact, Kiss offered hefty amounts of money to go
on tour opening for them and I turned them down every time, to
the point where they were begging us.
SECONDS: People now aren't talking about the bands that sold a
million records in 1982.
DANZIG: No, they're talking about Black Flag, The Misfits
Bauhaus. Those are the bands people remember and talk about
because they made a statement, and damn selling records. During
the Summer Of Love, Lou Reed was writing about Heroin. It gets to
the point where you have to remember why you do this and I keep
making myself remember. I try to stay hungry and remember -- even
when other people forget -- why I'm doing it.
SECONDS: There's a lot of confusion with you in terms of the dark
side. First of all, people get confused between Satanism and the
occult
DANZIG: There is no occult. It's a word given to arcane things by
Christians, Jews and whoever didn't want you to know about them.
Religions, sciences, knowledges all became the occult. I don't
like the word "occult"; it makes it sound like Satanism. To be
honest, what's wrong with Satanism? Is it any worse than killing
each other in religious wars like the Catholics and Islamics have
been doing for centuries? How many years has it been going on in
Bosnia? I don't think there's millions of Satanists boiling
little children and using their fat for spells. That's silly.
What makes Satanism any less of a religion than these other ones,
and why is there so much hatred towards people who practice
Satanism? Isn't that religious persecution? Isn't that grounds
for a lawsuit in this country? No, because it's Satanism. There's
so many hypocrisies among these organized religions that it's
ridiculous. If you worship Satan, it's a valid religion and
should be afforded all the freedoms and rights other religions
are offered. According to our Constitution, you have the right to
freedom of religion in this country. If your religion happens to
be Satanism, you should be able to practice it.
SECONDS: Who is Satan
DANZIG: Well, according to The New York Times, it's me. As soon
as I say one thing about Satan, I'm Satan. One of the first
authors I liked a lot when I was kid besides Edger Alien Poe was
Beaudelaire. When Beaudelaire wrote about Satan being
misunderstood, he was called a Satanist. Wagner, same thing.
SECONDS: Just for the record, is Glenn Danzig a Satanist
DANZIG: No. I would have to say some of my thinking corresponds
with some of the thinking of Satanism. There are parallels
between the way I believe and the way other people believe and
that does include some Satanists. I don't even know what religion
I am. As far as my dark side, I embrace both my light and dark
side. I don't feel bad about having a dark side, just as I don't
feel bad about having a light side. The two must coexist for me
to be myself. That's how I feel about the world. Without good,
there is no evil. Without evil, there is no good. You wouldn't
know the difference if we didn't have both polarities. If there's
a dark and light side, I'11 take both their energy. My mind is
open to all different possibilities.
SECONDS: Has the worship of Jesus slowed down society
DANZIG: It's the whole messiah thing in general. Some people are
waiting for the messiah to come back, some people are waiting for
the anti-Christ -- who cares? Stop waiting. Live your life and
have fun.
SECONDS: A bumper sticker says "God is coming."
DANZIG: Well, he's taking a long fucking time. Meanwhile, people
are starving. If there's a god, it's a cruel god, that's for
sure.
SECONDS: Where did you get the name Danzig from
DANZIG: It's my family name. Somebody started a rumor a long time
ago that it wasn't my name but it's not true. It's my name. My
license says t. There is a story behind it but I don't want to
tell you because it's a personal thing between me and my family.
SECONDS: What would you like your real fans to know about you"
DANZIG: I don't have to tell them, they already know. These
people already know what's bullshit. Unfortunately, journalists
in most cases don't buy records, they get them sent to them for
free. They're a little jaded and they rarely go to live shows.
There's very few journalists I know who go to live shows. Some of
them don't even like the format of loud music. They get a record
and go, "It's loud and obnoxious. I'm going to trash it. What can
I write about this? Oh, it's that Glenn guy, he's a Satanist."
SECONDS: I've seen you sit and sign autographs for an hour after
a show. Did you learn that from being a fan yourself~' I'm sure
you've seen bands that didn't treat their fans right ...
DANZIG: There's still bands that do that. Kids will come up to us
and say, "Candlebox played here last year and just walked right
to the bus. They wouldn't even talk to us." When I was a kid,
bands were never ever accessible to the fans. You have a personal
side you want to keep private but there's a side you can give to
them. If hearing what they have to tell about what your music
means to them is the least you can do, then what the fuck? I've
been lucky that the asshole ratio among my fans is not that high.
I don't think journalists realize what it's like to have a real
following of people who can relate to you. You can never please
the critics. Never try, because then you're not pleasing
yourself. Please yourself, it bears more fruit.